Codex Cumanicus

Peter B. Golden

I. INTRODUCTION

From the time of the appearance of the "European" Huns until
the collapse of the Cinggisid khanates, the Ponto-Caspian steppe
zone and as a consequence, to varying degrees, the neighboring
sedentary societies, have been dominated by or compelled to
interact intimately with a series of nomadic peoples. Although
Scythian and Sarmatian tribes of Iranian stock had held sway here
for nearly a millenium before the coming of the Huns and Iranian
elements both in their own right and as substratal influences
continued to have an important role in the ethnogenesis of the
peoples of this region, the majority, or at least politically
dominant element, of the nomads who became masters of these rich
steppelands were Turkic. In the period after the Turk conquest of
Western Eurasia in the late 560's, until the Cinggisid invasions,
the Turkic polities of the area all derived, in one form or
another, from the Turk Qaganate.

Of these peoples, only the Khazars, the direct political
successors of the Turks, produced a qaganate in the classical
Turkic mold. The others remained essentially tribal
confederations which, for a variety of reasons, did not feel the
impetus to create a sturdier political entity, i.e. a state.
Those that were driven from the area into sedentary or semi-
sedentary zones, such as the Hungarians (a mixed Turkic and
Ugrian grouping under strong Khazar influence) and parts of the
Oguz, under Seljuq leadership, did create states but along
largely Christian (Hungary, Danubian Bulgaria) or Islamic (the
Seljuqs) lines. These polities, whether full-blown nomadic
states, such as Khazaria, or tribal unions, such as the
Pecenegs, Western Oguz (Torks of the Rus' sources) or Cuman-
Qipcaqs, however great their military prowess and commercial
interests, have passed on little in the way of literary monuments
stemming directly from them in their own tongues. Khazaria, for
example, which as a genuine state had a need for literacy, has
left us only documents in Hebrew, reflecting the Judaization of
the ruling elements. Indeed, their language about which there
are still many unanswered questions, is known, such as it is,
almost exclusively from the titles and names of prominent Khazars
recorded in the historical records of neighboring sedentary
states. The Balkan Bulgars who, living in close physical
propinquity to and cultural contact with Byzantium and ruling
over a Slavic majority to which they eventually assimilated, have
left somewhat more in the way of scattered inscriptions in mixed
Bulgaro-Greek (in Greek letters) and in mixed Slavo-Bulgaric.
Their kinsmen on the Volga who adopted Islam in the 10th century,
have left a number of tomb-inscriptions (dating largely from the
Cinggisid era, 13th-14th centuries) in a highly stylized, mixed
Arabo-Bulgaric language in Arabic script. Volga Bulgaria, as an
Islamic center, used, of course, Arabic as its principal language
of communication with the larger world. The inscriptional
material, it might be argued, bespeaks a long-standing Bulgaric
literary tradition. But, in this respect, as in a number of
others, Volga Bulgaria, which did form a state, in the forest-
steppe zone ruling over a largely Finnic population and in which
denomadization was well-advanced, was atypical.

What is interesting to note here is that unlike the Turkic
peoples of Central Eurasia and Inner Asia (the Turks, Uygurs,
Qarakhanids), the Western Eurasian Turkic tribes did not create
significant literary monuments either in Turkic runic script,
several variants of which were in use among many of them or in
any of the other script systems that were available to them
(Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and even Georgian). This seeming lack
of literary ambition (which may yet be disproved by archaeology)
is probably to be attributed to the weak articulation of
political organization among peoples such as the Pecenegs,
Western Oguz and Cuman-Qipcaqs. Thus, it should come as no great
surprise that one of the most significant literary monuments
connected with the language of one of the dominant tribal
confederations of the region, the Codex Cumanicus, was largely
the work of non-Cumans. Before turning to the Codex itself, we
must say something about the people whose language it describes.

The tangled knot of problems that revolves around the
question of Cuman-Qipcaq ethnogenesis has yet to be completely
unraveled. Even the name for this tribal confederation is by no
means entirely clear. Western (Greek and Latin) and
infrequently Rus' sources called them Comani, Cumani, Kumani.
Medieval Hungarians, who had close relations with them and to
whose land elements of the Cumans fled in the 13th century
seeking sanctuary from the Mongols, knew them as Kun. This name
is certainly to be identified with the Qun of Islamic authors
(such as al-Biruni and al-Marwazi, the notices in Yaqut and al-
Bakuwi clearly derive from al-Biruni) who, according to al-
Marwazi, figured prominently in the migration of the Cuman-
Qipcaqs to the west. Whether the Qun are, in turn, to be
associated with the Hun (* u n) = Xun/Qun people affiliated
with the T`ieh-le/Toquz Oguz confederation is not clear.

Old Turkic sources knew elements of what would become the
Cuman-Qipcaq tribal union as Qibcaq and perhaps other names.
The ethnonym Qibcaq was picked up by Islamic authors (e.g. in the
forms Xifjax, Qifjaq, Qipcaq etc.) and Transcaucasian sources
(cf. Georgian Qivc`aq-, Armenian Xbsax). These Altaic names were
loan-translated into some of the languages of their sedentary
neighbors. Thus, Rus' Polovcin, Polovci (Polish, Czech
Plauci, Hung. Palocz), Latin Pallidi, German and Germano-Latin
Falones, Phalagi, Valvi, Valewen etc. Armenian Xartes. These
terms are usually viewed as renderings of Turkic qu *qub or
similar forms meaning "bleich, gelblich, gelbraun, fahl." A
variety of sources equate them, in turn, with the Qangli, one of
the names by which the easternmost, Central Eurasian branch of
the Cuman-Qipcaq confederation was known.

These tribes included Turkic, Mongol and Iranian elements or
antecedents. The inter-tribal lingua franca of the confederation,
however, became a distinct dialect of Turkic that we term Qipcaq,
a language reflected in several dialects in the Codex Cumanicus.
The Cuman-Qipcaqs held sway over the steppe zone stretching from
the Ukraine to Central Eurasia where they constituted an
important element, closely associated with the Xwarazmian royal
house via marital alliances. They had equally close relations
with Rus' (with whom they often warred), Georgia (where elements
of them settled and Christianized), Hungary and the Balkans
where later, under Mongol auspices,the Cuman Terterids
established a dynasty.

Cuman-Qipcaq hegemony extended to much of the Crimea as
well. Here their interests were, as in many other areas,
commercial. In the pre-Cinggisid period, the Cumans took tribute
from the Crimean cities. The city of Sudaq, an ancient commercial
emporium, was viewed by Ibn al-Air (early 13th century) as the
"city of the Qifjaq from which (flow) their material possessions.
It is on the Khazar Sea. Ships come to it bearing clothes. The
Qifjiqs buy (from) them and sell them slave-girls and slaves,
Burtas furs, beaver, squirrels..." By virtue of their
political hegemony, Cuman became the lingua franca of this area.
It spread to the other communities resident there as well.
Thus,the Crimean Armenian and Karaite Jewish communities adopted
this language and preserved it for centuries afterwards in
milieus far removed from the Crimea With the Mongol conquest
of the Qipcaq lands completed by the late 1230's, some Qipcaq
tribes (most notably those under Kten) fled to Hungary. The
majority, however, were incorporated into the Mongol Empire. The
pan-nomadic empire of the Turks was thus recreated on an even
larger scale. The Qipcaq language, far from receding into the
background, established itself as a lingua franca in the Western
Eurasian zone of the Cinggisid state within a century of the
Conquest. Thus, a Mamluk scholar, al-`Umari (d.1348), observed
that the "Tatars," whose numbers, in any event, were not great
and whose ranks already included numerous Turkic elements from
Inner and Central Asia, had intermarried extensively with the
local Turkic population and had, in effect, become Qipcaqicized.
In the latter half of the 13th century (beginning in the
1260's), as the Cinggisid khanates began to squabble over
territory, the Jocids of Saray in their struggle with the Hlegids
of Iran, found a useful ally in the Qipcaq Mamluks of Egypt-Syria
to whom they continued to supply mamluks from their Crimean
ports. The spread of Islam to the Mongols beginning with Berke
(1257-1266) and culminating with Ozbeg (1313-1341) helped to
strengthen this tie.

II DATING AND ORIGIN

The Codex Cumanicus, which is presently housed in the
Library of St. Mark, in Venice, Cod. Mar. Lat. DXLIX, is not one
but several unrelated (except in the broadest sense) works which
were ultimately combined under one cover. The Codex may be
divided into two distinct and independent parts : I) a practical
handbook of the Cuman language with glossaries in Italo-Latin,
Persian and Cuman II) a mixed collection of religious texts,
linguistic data and folkloric materials (the Cuman Riddles),
stemming from a number of hands, with translations into Latin and
a dialect of Eastern Middle High German. It is also clear that a
number of subsequent hands made contributions to both sections.
Many scholars have simply termed these two, distinct works, the
"Italian" part and the "German" part. This is undoubtedly true
with respect to the ethno-linguistic origins or milieus of the
authors. But, Ligeti is probably closer to the mark in calling
the first part, the "Interpretor's Book" and the second part the
"Missionaries' Book."

The Codex was first mentioned in the 17th century and was
believed to have come from the library of the great Italian
Humanist Petrarch (1304-1375). This attribution, however, has
been shown to be incorrect. The dating and place of origin of
the Codex's different sections have long been in dispute. Bazin,
who has closely studied the calendrical entries (CC, 72/80-81)
concluded that the "Interpretor's Book" was probably composed
between 1293-1295. Drull, however, would place it as early as
1292-1295. The date found in the Venice ms. "MCCCIII die XI
Iuly" (CC, 1/1) should be viewed as the date of the first copy or
the beginning of the first copy. The copy preserved in the
Venice ms., as an examination of the paper has demonstrated,
stems from, or was at least copied on, paper made in the mid-13th
century. The "Missionaries' Book" comes from a variety of
sources and was put together ca. 1330-1340. Other elements were
perhaps added later. The authors are unknown, although it seems
likely that they were part of the Franciscan community. The
German Francsicans who played an important role in the creation
of the "Missionaries' Book," came from an Eastern High German-
speaking background. The "Interpretor's Book" was compiled by
Italian men of commerce (Venetians or Genoese) or their scribes
in Solxat (Eski Krim) or Kaffa (Feodosija). There is evidence to
indicate that different individuals (perhaps many) were
involved in preparing/translating the Persian and Cuman sections
of the tri-lingual glossary. The first copy (1303), it has been
suggested, was done in the monastery of St. John near Saray. The
later copy which is preserved in Venice, dating to ca. 1330-1340,
probably came from some Franciscan monastery. Here too, it seems
likely, is where the different sections of the Codex were
combined. Somehow, these various parts came again into Italian
hands and thus to Venice. The work, then, is a pastiche of
larger and smaller pieces which were composed/compiled with
different intentions. The "Interpretor's Book" was largely, but
not exclusively, practical and commercial in nature. The
"Missionaries' Book," in addition to its purely linguistic goals,
contains sermons, psalms and other religious texts as well as a
sampling of Cuman riddles.

The Venetians and Genoese were actively involved (as well as
competitors) in trade in the Crimea. This trade, as we know from
contemporary accounts, such as Pegolotti, went by stages from
Tana (Azov, a major unloading site for goods coming from Asia to
the Crimea) to the Lower Volga (Astraxan-Saray) and thence to
the Urals and Xwarazm and ultimately to China. It dealt with a
wide variety of items, e.g. wax, metals (including precious
metals), spices and other foodstuffs, silk and other fabrics,
pelts of valuable furs etc. The Italian commercial colonies
in the Crimea, had, of course, regular contact with Tana. There
was also contact with Ilkhanid Iran via Trapezunt. Indeed, Drll
argues that the author(s) of the Latin-Persian-Cuman glossary of
the "Interpretor's Book" must have been Genoese, operating from
Kaffa, as the Genoese were the only ones who had contact with
merchants from both the Ilkhanid and Jocid realms. ALthough
the Italian merchants were not involved in the slave or mamluk
trade with Egypt, the Crimea had a long history of involvement in
this activity. There is a Modern Kazax proverb that reflects this
: uli irimga, qizi Qirimga ketti "the son went as a hostage and
the daughter went off to Crimea (i.e. to slavery)." The
trilingual glossary reflects this trade orientation and as we
shall see has extensive lists of consumer goods.

III THE LANGUAGES OF THE Codex Cumanicus

The Latin of the Codex is found in two variants, indicating
the ethno-linguistic affiliations of the authors and their
educational level. The Latin of the "Interpretor's Book" is a
Vulgar Italo-Latin, while that of the "Missionaries' Book" is
more "correct," reflecting the ecclesiastical training of its
Franciscan authors. The Persian material has been the subject
of two recent studies. Daoud Monchi-Zadeh has argued that the
Persian material came through Cuman intermediaries, a kind of
Cuman filter, and was translated by them. Andras
Bodgrogligeti, on the other hand, suggests that this Persian was
rather a lingua franca of the Eastern trade. As a consequence, it
had undergone, to varying degrees, standardization, back
formation and simplification. Some words are archaic, others
unusual. In short, what we see reflected is not the living
language of a native speaker, but rather a kind of simplified
koine.

The Cuman of the CC also represents some kind of lingua
franca, one that was understood throughout Central Asia. This
language, however, was not perfectly reflected in the CC. The
latter, we must remember, was compiled by non-Turkic-speakers
with varying levels of command of the language. There are a
number of "incorrect" syntactical constructions as well as
mistakes in grammar, phonetics and translation. Some of these are
simply the result of faulty knowledge or scribal errors. Other
deviations from the "norms" of Turkic are probably to be
attributed to the word for word, literal translations. These
types of translations in the Middle Ages, were well-known,
especially when translating sacred, religious texts. Thus, in
Karaim, one of the closest linguistic relatives of the Cuman
mirrored in the CC, we find sentences such as : kisi edi
yerind'a Ucnun, Iyov semi anin, da edi ol kisi ol t'g'l da t'z,
qorxuvcu t'enrid'n ("There was a man in the Land of Uz whose name
was Job and that man was perfect and upright and one that feared
God," Job,1) , a word for word rendering of the Hebrew. Some
of the forms which have an "unturkic" character about them may
almost certainly be attributed to the influence of the compilers'
native Italian/Italo-Latin and German. Many of these forms,
however, are ambiguous in origin as similar phenomena can be
found in other Turkic langauges as well and may here also
reflect the influence of Indo-European languages.

Of greater interest is the fact, hardly unexpected in a work
in which so many different hands were involved, that the CC
lexical material is comprised of several Qipcaq dialects. Some of
these can be most clearly seen in the different sections :

The well-known shift in Qipcaq g w/v is clearly indicated
in the "Missionaries' Book." The latter also has greater evidence
of the q x shift (e.g. yoqsul yoxsul "arm, mettellos"). The
"Interpretor's Book" appears to represent an older or more
conservative dialect.

We may also note that whereas the "Missionaries Book"
clearly renders j with g in non-Turkic words, e.g. gahan =jahan
"World," gan = jan "Soul," gomard = jomard "generous" (all
borrowings from Persian), the "Interpretor's Book" renders this
with j or y. This might indicate a pronunciation with y
(although the Persian forms with j are also regularly rendered
with i), cf. jaghan = yahan or jahan, jomard, jomart = yomard or
jomard, joap = yowap or jowap (Ar. jawab "answer") and yanauar
= yanawar or janavar. This shift in initial j y is known to
some Qipcaq dialects, especially in loan-words, cf. Baskir yawap

Terms Relating to Time (CC, 71-72/78-81) : yil "year," ay
"moon, month," kn "day," kece or tn "night," etc. This fairly
full section contains a list of the days of the week (largely
deriving from Pers.) and the months of the year :
tu-sanbe (Pers.) "Monday," se-sanbe (Pers.) "Tuesday," caar-
sanbe (Pers.) "Wednesday," pan-sanbe (Pers.) "Thursday,"
ayna (Iran. a ina) "Friday," sabat kn "Saturday," (sabat
ultimately derives from Hebrew sabbat. It is also found in Qaraim
(sabat kn, hardly unexpected there), Armeno-Coman (sapat' k`un)
and Qaracay-Balqar (sabat kn), all Western Qipcaq languages
deriving from Cuman. This culture-word also entered into Cuvas (
samat, samat kun) and Volga Finnic (Ceremis/Mari sumat
Votyak/Udmurt sumot, perhaps from Volga Bulgaric). In all
instances, the ultimate source for this word in Turkic was most
probably Khazar.)ye-sanbe "Sunday," aybasi "first day of the
month," kalendas. The Cuman calendar is given below, together
with the Latin and Perso-Islamic equivalents :

The Missionaries' Book (CC, 111-164/132-235) consists of several
very different sections or parts from undoubtedly a number of
authors. A strong impression is left that this is hardly a
finished work, but rather one that may have been still in
progress at the time in which our copy was made. It contains a
variety of vocabulary listings (not in alphabetical order),
grammatical notes, a conjugation of the verb anglarmen
"intelligo" (CC, 129-134/177-180), a section of Cuman riddles, a
number of religious texts and a scattering of Italian verses. It
begins with the verbs seskenirmen, elgenirmen "ich irschrake" (=
Eastern Middle High German trans.) and several other verbs and
phrases, e.g. yiti bicaq "eyn scharf messier," satov etermen
"ich kouflage," yp yp ulu bolur "is wirt y lengir y
grossir."Some of the phrases are translated into both East Middle
High German and Latin, e.g. it redir "d' hunt billit canis
latrat," it ugrayadir "d'hunt gru(n)czet," qoy mangradir "ouis
balat," kisi incqaydir "d' menche brehtit (Gronbech, KWb., p.273
reads this as "der mensche krHcit"), ucamda yatirmen "ich lege
uf dem rucke," etc. Without any preamble there is on CC,117/141 a
brief religious text that begins with : bilge tetik kisiler menim
szm esitingler, eki yolni ayringlar ("Wise and intelligent
persons, listen to my words, distinguish between two paths...").
Given the fragmented and highly variegated nature of these texts,
we will not follow, as we have thus far, a page by page analysis,
but rather will excerpt texts and sections that best illustrate
the character of the whole.

At the time of the composition of the "Missionaries' Book,"
attempts to convert the Cumans already had a considerable
history. An episcopatus Cumanorum seems to have been in existence
by 1217 or 1218. The Papacy and the Hungarian kings were
particularly interested in their conversion for a variety of
reasons, both foreign and domestic. The Dominican and Franciscan
orders were tapped for this program. The mission took on further
momentum when a Cuman chieftan Borc/Bortz and his son Membrok as
well as a goodly number of their tribesmen converted in 1227.
Robert, the archbishop of Esztergom, received Papal permission to
go to Cumania for this purpose. These missionary activities
appear to have survived the Mongol invasions. By 1287, the
Franciscan mission was flourishing under Cinggisid protection.
They had a church and hospice at Kaffa and a chapel at the
administrative center of the Crimea, Solxat. Yaylaq, the wife of
Nogay, the Tatar strongman of the late 13th century, was baptized
there. From the Crimea, missions were sent to the more northern
Qipcaq-Tatar lands.

The religious texts consist of homililetics that would be
useful in the task of proselytixation, the Ten Commandments, the
Nicene Creed and various Psalms. An illustrative sampling is
given below (CC, 132/184-185) : Tengrini svgil barca stnde
"Love God above all else" (= "Thou shalt have no other gods
before me"), Tengrining ati bile anticmegil = "Thou shalt not
take the Lord's name in vain," ulu kn avurlagil = "Remember the
Sabbath day, to keep it holy," atangi anangi xormatlagil "Honor
they father and thy mother," kisini ltrmegil = "Thou shalt not
kill," ogur bolmagil = "Thou shalt not steal," (h)ersek bolmagil
= "Thou shalt not commit adultery," yalgan tanixliq bermegil
"Thou shalt not bear false witness," zge kisining nemesi
suxlanmagil = "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house " etc.
The prohibition on graven images in curiously absent. Added to
these commmandments, however, are a number of others, e.g. sevgil
sening qarindasin sening kibi "Love thy brother as thyself."

(CC, 121/158) "Kim egi kngl bile bizim yixvge kelse ulu kn
agirlap anga bolgay alti yil bosaq" "He who comes with a good
heart to our church and honors the Sabbath, to him will be
(granted) six years indulgence"

Finally, we may note the "Nicene Credo" (CC, 148/211-212) :
"Inanirmen barcaga erkli bir ata Tengrige kokni yerni barca krnr
krnmezni yaratti dey. Dagi bir beyimiz Yesus Kristusga barca
zamanlardan burun atadan tuwgan turur (Kuun : ata tuuptrur =
ata towupturur), Tengri Tengriden, yarix yarixtan, cin Tengri
cin Tengriden, etilmey ataga tzdes tuwupturur, andan ulam bar
barca bolgan-turur kim biz azamlar cn dagin bizim ongimiz kkden
enip ari tindan ulam erdeng ana Maryamdan ten alip kisi bolup-
turur..." "I believe in one God the Father, all-powerful, who
created heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible,
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who
was born of the Father before all times, God from God, Light from
Light, true God from true God, not created, born (of) the same
substance as the Father, through Thee all things were made, who
for us men and our health (=salvation) also descended from heaven
and through the Holy Spirit and from the Virgin Mother Mary took
flesh and became man..."

There are many other aspects of the CC which we may explore
further. Given the limits of space, however, we will touch on
only a few of them here.
Loanwords

The CC is very rich in the international mercantile
vocabulary that had developed in the Eastern Mediterranean and
Western Eurasia. This vocabulary is particularly well-represented
in the trilingual "Interpretor's Book." These terms, as we have
seen, were largely of Persian or Arabic origin, often going back
to still earlier borrowings into those languages from Greek and
Indic. On the basis of the CC, it would appear that this
international vocabulary had entered virtually every aspect of
Cuman life. Having noted this, a word of caution is necessary. We
must bear in mind that the vocabulary of Cuman urban dwellers was
undoubtedly richer in these terms than their steppe neighbors.
The polyethnic origins of the population of the Crimean cities
almost certainly increased the "foreign" elements in local Cuman
speech. Moreover, the compilers of the CC, given their origins,
may have also been more inclined to use and hence include in
their glossaries these lingua franca elements.

Mongol : The CC contains a number of Mongol loanwords. Given the
historical contacts of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples, not to
mention the much-debated Altaic question, the dating and nature
of these words pose many problems. Our task is further
complicated by the fact that Mongol-speaking, or bilingual,
Mongol and Turkic-speaking (i.e. Mongol tribes that were becoming
Turkicized) joined the Cuman-Qipcaq confederation before the 13th
century. Other Mongol influences undoubtedly stem from the era of
Cinggisid hegemony. Thus, there are many layers of Cumano-Qipcaq-
Mongol interaction, some very old, which cannot be easily
differentiated. Poppe has done a very thorough study of these
words. As a consequence, we shall give here only a representative
sampling :<
P>
Codex Cumanicus

Arabic: Arabic elements, as we have seen, are quite numerous in
all the socio-linguistic categories noted in the "Interpretor's
Book" and elsewhere. This reflects the important Muslim
political, commercial and religio-cultural influences in the
Crimea. That these words were not limited to the Muslim
population can be seen by their presence, without sectarian
connotations, in Qaraim and Armeno-Coman. Elsewhere in this
study, frequent reference has been made to words of Arabic
origin, many of which entered Cuman via Persian. We shall cite
here only a few examples : alam "banner" Arab. `alam, albet
"certainly, of course" Arab. albatta, azam "man" adam,
seriat "judge" Arab. sar`iyyah "Muslim law." This use of a
specific Muslim term for a broader category is also a feature of
the Tolkovanie jazyka poloveckogo (13th century ?, discussed
below), cf. alkoran "zakon" al-qur'an, elfokaz "uciteli i
velikie tolkovnici" al-fuquha "jurists of religious law."
Xukm "judgement, decision" Arab. hukm, hakim, xakim "doctor"
Arab. hakim, aziz, haziz "rare, costly, pilgrim, holy, sacred"
Arab. `aziz, nur "light" Arab. nur, safar "journey"
Arab. safar, seir "poet" Arab. si`r "poetry," sa`ir "poet,"
tafariq (CC, 132/184, tafsanyt) "difference" Arab. tafriq,
pl. tafariq "separation, differentiation."
Persian: The principal Muslim lingua franca of the East, Persian,
is also well-represented in the CC. As these words have been
pointed out in much of the foregoing, the following is only a
very brief sampling : daru "medicine" Pers. daru, drust "true"
Pers. drust, durust, bazar "bazaar,market" Pers. bazar,
bazargan "merchant" Pers. bazargan, hergiz, herkiz "never"
Pers. hargiz "ever, always, continuously," jahan, jehan "world"
Pers. jahan, jihan, jigar "liver Pers. jigar, piyala
"goblet" Pers. piyala etc.

Hebrew, Syriac and Others Elements : as was noted earlier,
Cuman sabat kun "Saturday" derives ultimately from Hebrew sabbat
via a probable Khazar intermediary. The name (CC, 143/202)
Hawa/Hava "Eve" also appears in its Hebrew form (Hava) rather
than the expected Eva. Interestingly, the word for "Messiah"
appears in its Syriac form, or a form derived from it : (CC,
138/189) misixa Syr. Mesiha. There are a number of words of
undetermined origin. Among them is (CC, 160/222) kesene
"grave mound," which is preserved in Qaracay and Balqar k`esene,
kesene "Friedhoff, grobnica." Ligeti suggested a Caucasian
provenance without adducing further evidence. Zajaczkowski noted
Pelliot's earlier Persian etymology, kasana "a small house."
But, it is not quite clear how the Cuman form could have emerged
from the Persian.

The authors of the "Missionaries' Book" had to create or
elaborate a special Christian Vocabulary. Certain religious terms
were already known to Cuman, as part of the Inner Asian Turkic
legacy of long-standing contacts with a variety of religions.
Thus, terms such as tamu,tamuq, tamux "Hell," ucmaq "Paradise,"
both loanwords from Sogdian (tamw, 'wstmg) or some other
Iranian language , were already familiar concepts and not
necessarily in a Christian form. These and other Old Turkic terms
were now given a specific Christian nuance,e.g. bitik (biti-
"to write" Middle Chin. piet "brush") "anything written, book"
now became "The Book," i.e. the Bible. Other terms were loan-
translated into Turkic, e.g. Bey(imiz) Tengri "Dominus Deus,"
clk "the Trinity," ari tin "the Holy Ghost," kktegi xanliq " the
Kingdom of Heaven," etc. An interesting usage (if not original in
Cuman) is yix v (iduq ev "holy, sacred house") "church"
(found in Qaraim as yeg'v "church," a semantic parallel can be
seen in Hung. egyhaz "church, " lit. "holy house"). The notion
of "saviour" was directly translated into Turkic : (CC, 122/160)
"Yesus Christus bitik tilince, tatarca qutqardaci, ol kertirir
barca elni qutqardaci" "Jesus Christ, in the language of the
Book, in Tatar, is the Saviour, that means the Saviour of all
people."

The Cuman calendar (see above) shows neither specific
Christian influences nor any trace of the Sino-Turkic 12 year
animal cycle. This appears to be an archaic system, typical,
perhaps, of the Northern Turkic milieu from which the Qipcaqs
emerged.

Other examples of this older Turkic culture can be seen in
words such as qam "sorceress" qam "shaman, sorcerer,
soothsayer, magician."

Cuman Documents Contemporary to the Codex
Cumanicus

A number of Qipcaq-Arabic grammar/glossaries (sometimes
containing other languages as well) appeared in Mamluk lands in
the 14th and 15th century. Close in content to the CC, although
very different in format, are the Kitab al-Idrak li'l-Lisan al-
Atrak (ca. 1313 or 1320) of Abu Hayyan (1286-1344), the Kitab
Majmu` Tarjuman Turki wa `Ajami wa Mugali wa Farsi (now dated to
1343), the Kitab Bulgat al-Mustaq fi Lugat at-Turk wa'l-Qifjaq
of Jalal ad-Din Abu Muhammad `Abdallah at-Turki (which may date
to the late 14th century, but certainly before the mid-15th
century), the At-Tuhfah az-Zakiyyah fi'l-lugat at-Turkiyyah of as
yet undetermined authorship (written before 1425) and the al-
Qawanin al-Kulliyyah li-Dabt al-Lugat at-Turkiyyah written in
Egypt at the time of Timur. To this list may perhaps be added
the thus far partialy published six-languge Rasulid Hexaglot
(dating to the 1360's) which contains vocabularies in Arabic,
Persian, two dialects of Turkic (one of which is clearly Oguz,
the other may be viewed as Qipcaq or a mixed Eastern Oguz-Qipcaq
dialect), Greek, Armenian and Mongol.

There are also fragments of Cuman-Rus' glossaries such as Se
tatarsky jazyk which is found in a 15th century sbornik from
Novgorod and the Tolkovanie jazyka poloveckago found in a 16th
century menologium. These undoubtedly date from an earlier
period.

Finally, mention should be made of the Qipcaq translation of
Sa`di's Gulistan done by Sayf-i Sarayi in Cairo in 793/1390-
1391.